A New Year of Possibilities and Opportunities Through Goal Setting

A New Year Year of Possibilities and Opportunities at your doorstep!

Welcome to the New Year of 2012, Sharon and I hope you have had a fabulous Christmas and ready to start your 2012 as a year of abundance!

A New Year typically starts with a focus on resolutions and goals around personal changes. It could be to exercise three times a week, drink only on weekends or other small habits to change within yourself.

The hardest part for some people with New Years resolutions is the consistency and commitment to keep to them. To follow through each week, inspect what you expect from your goals and resolutions and maintaining your DRIVE and DESIRE to achieve them.

I am going to share some insight into my resolution and goal tips could help you stay consistent and committed to them from the time you write them down to the date you set to achieve them.

With all the New Years resolutions, why not look further than the next twelve months? Look at your end goal, your ultimate dreams and desires and work backwards. When you know your end goal, in say five years, then break down to three years, one year and then even 6 months.

Why?

Have you ever written a goal down and just felt way too overwhelmed that it’s IMPOSSIBLE and will never happen. Your negative thoughts kick in, the subconscious devil pops up and says “you can’t achieve that”, “you don’t know how to do that”, “ you wont have time…”. Then you walk away feeling less motivated than before you even wrote down the goal, and in the end abandoning the dream or goal all together.

These are tips that I’ve amalgamated to assist with those pitfalls in goal setting. You may or may not feel comfortable or want to use them, but give them a try and let Sharon and I know how you go!

Initially I am going to talk about writing goals, but the tips below help you extract more specific goals from your long term dreams as well!

Get Ready and Get Excited!

This is Part 1 of Writing and Achieving Your New Year Resolutions!

Tip #1 – SMART Goals

SMART Goals are utilised around the world to help leaders, and employees write their achieve goals within their work place. These techniques are carried across to personal and work life everyday.

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Attainable

R – Realistic/Relevant

T – Timely

Goals should be straightforward and specific to the accomplishment you wish to achieve. This is the foundation of the success before the actions to help you move forward.

For example, let’s say you want to earn an extra income from a home business venture this year… That’s too broad, no measure of time and doesn’t help you drill down.

Lets get granular!

Take some time now and think of a SMART goal for you in 2012. To demonstrate, I’ll use:

“I will be earning over $1000 a month from my home business by the 31st of December 2012 by the sale of my products to over 60 clients”.

Breaking this down you can pull out the key points:

Specific $1000 a month target for your income

Date of when to achieve by

Measurable and realistic clientele details that will drive the base goal

In this goal I can comfortably write this down, then know the set date of when I will be earning my extra $1000 a month AND what I NEED to do. Not every goal setter will put the finer detail of the goal, i.e “by the sale of my products to over 60 clients”.

It is my experience that this is a critical foundation of the goal you want to set:

You won’t lie to yourself – you won’t write down “ by the sale of 3000 clients” which could be unrealistic within your business

You now have a great starting point to break down the goals into your actions

You can measure on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis other than income alone.

Remember to have a realistic time frame, and if you are unsure of what is realistic talk to your business partners or colleagues who have achieved your goal before.

Take a moment now and think of the goal that you would like to achieve in the next three to five years or just this year. Write it down and try and follow the same basic principles.

Tip #2 – Self Affirmations to assist in driving your self belief.

Even with realistic goals, some of us are unsettled or still don’t have the ultimate self-belief to achieve them. A small tip that I learned from many successful entrepreneurs is to incorporate the self-affirmation principle within your goals.

An affirmation is a declaration of something that is true, it’s used to develop a powerful mindset by putting your mental state into a positive belief.

For example I may want to write a positive affirmation around our example goal.

“I Steve Partos am a successful entrepreneur and earning an extra income from home.”

I would write this down, place it near my bedside, iphone, or on the bathroom mirror or what may work for you and read it EVERYDAY to ingrain that I am a SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR and EARNING AN EXTRA INCOME FROM HOME.

This new, consistent habit will:

Drive these beliefs into my subconscious,

Keep my focus on what I DO want rather than possibly slipping into my fears, and

Assist in my positive attitude towards the actions I need to do to drive my goals.

Committing to this daily success habit will prove to be vital in keeping your mindset right to assist in the goals you have set. Why not also merge a few of these key words into the goals you are setting.

Rewriting the example goal from Tip #1:

“I Steve Partos am a successful entrepreneur and earning an extra $1000 a month from my home business by the 31st of December 2012 by the sale of my products to over 60 clientele”

Now take some time to think of your initial goal and rewrite it to include a positive affirmation of yourself within the goal statement.

Tip #3 Write It Big and Write It Loud!

So now you should have a framework and some direction on writing the goals for this year, or even the next three years. Now What?

Is it sitting on a small notepad next to your computer, or back in a drawer? Be sure not to fall into the common trap and let your goals sit unnoticed and away from your daily viewing!

This year I went out a bought a big flipchart with colourful markers. I have written out my goals and dreams in LARGE colourful writing and pinned it to my wall.

Guess what?

It’s IN MY FACE, and I’m not walking past it without reading it, I see it everyday and ready it everyday. I let the colours resonate with my feelings and help me drive to say it everyday.

Be creative, make it your personal style, something that makes you feel happy and powerful and excited when you read it. Don’t let it sit them glum and boring, let it SHOUT at you! Bring you into read and concentrate on those goals everyday!

Sharon and I would love to read your goals and assist them in becoming real for you. Take a moment and fill out the contact form to send us your goals! We will then touch base with you to see how we can help, or just keep them on file and touch base with you on your journey to achieving them!

Now stay tuned – Part 2 of this article will discuss the bigger goals, how to start with the end in mind, derive actions from them to get you there and stay focused throughout your year! I can’t wait!